The Age of Innocence

Childhood Sweethearts in a Beijing Courtyard

On the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month, in the year 1987.

Qiu Shi, nearly eight years old, returned to Beijing from Mishan in Heilongjiang. In the cramped, crowded courtyard house on Paper Kite Hutong, he met ten-year-old Xu Minghai.

Through that era of pristine, pale innocence, the two played and quarreled, wept and laughed, loved and fell out — yet through it all, they held fast to each other’s birth dates, the eight characters that marked their fates.

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Xu Minghai: “What are you reading?”

Qiu Shi: “Wang Zengqi’s ‘Taking Vows.’ The monk in it is also called Minghai. He likes Little Yingzi.”

Xu Minghai: “And does Little Yingzi like him back?”

Qiu Shi: “She does.”

Xu Minghai: “How do you know?”

Qiu Shi: “She says, ‘What if I became your wife — would you have me?'”

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Tags:

Reunion, Childhood Sweethearts, Beijing dialect, Daily domestic life, Changing times, Happy Ending

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Important Note:

Contains mutual switching dynamics.